1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mammography, but more precisely, to a method of automatically processing a digital mammographic image, an apparatus, and a program for executing the method.
2. Description of the Related Art
The method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-43187 is known as the method of processing a mammographic image. In the disclosed method, a mammographic image, which is a digital image taken by computed radiography (CR) or other means, is processed. As illustrated in FIG. 6 of the Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-43187, a mammographic image usually have broad background portion outside the outline of the breast as it must cover a large range of breast sizes. In many cases with women who have small breasts, the mammographic images represented have remarkably broad portion of background, which are not required for diagnoses.
In a single mammographic examination, there are four mammographic images generated: RCC, LCC, RMLO and LMLO (R: the right breast, L: the left breast, CC: craniocaudal view, and MLO: mediolateral view). In order to detect about 50 micron sized micro calcifications of breast cancer, the file size of a digital mammographic image needs to be huge to ensure high resolution picture or image. In the conventional method of processing a mammographic image, large numbers of mammographic images with broad background portions are stored. The storage capacity of a recording medium is wasted on these not required background portions, and also causes the period of time for transmitting or outputting mammographic images to increase. However, in order to accurately diagnose a breast disease, a mammographic image should have a size within the range of 30 to 130 MB (megabits). Four images of a single mammographic examination should have a size within 120 MB to 520 MB. Future technology development of mammographic modalities will increase the size of the mammographic image with larger number of pixels, the speed of image transfer and display will become slower.